by J.P Jackson
*
Forty minutes later, Taylor saw the soaring skyscrapers of home, besmirched by the Pride mothership in the grey sky. Millions of people packed the streets and sidewalks of Manhattan. The clock was ticking, the world was waiting.
Taylor faced Wertz as the chopper circled around Midtown.
"What are you looking at?” Wertz asked, uneasy.
"You were a hero once!” Taylor yelled over the wind. “You're the most decorated soldier in the history of the United States because you fought tooth and nail to protect her! She's still here Robert, somewhere under all this bullshit. Take a look,” he added, nodding toward the crowd. “There are good people down there ready to fight for our planet. They've got a reason. All they need is a leader.”
Wertz turned his head to one side as the chopper descended on Times Square. The famous junction was brightly adorned with billboards and vast screens relaying Taylor's landing. The chopper aimed for a painted H on the road. Crowds looked up and Taylor gawked back. It seemed like every human being in the city had gathered to see what would happen next.
The helicopter touched down, rotors came to a stop and Taylor unbuckled his belt.
He composed himself with a few breaths before stepping out. When his feet touched concrete and he straightened out his back, he was stunned by the reaction that greeted him. Nothing. Millions of eyes watched around the globe yet Taylor could hear a pin drop. It was the busiest and quietest Times Square had ever been.
He saw his expressionless face on screen, broadcast by a drone swooping in close.
The Pride gathered half a football field away, three lions before Apophis and a chained and miserable looking Yellow Jack. Internally, Taylor's heart pounded harder than he could ever remember, but with his torch sitting at 0 percent, he wouldn't be jumping anywhere.
The crowd parted, creating a path from Taylor to Apophis. Like the slaves of Ancient Egypt, modern man took to his knees for the lion God.
Wertz moved behind Taylor and nervously whispered down his neck. “Get going.”
Taylor squinted up at the mothership where he had been just hours, centuries and a millennia ago. He stopped to stare, thinking of the 10 baubles he had dropped in the tanks. Wertz's prodding gun urged him forward. Taylor shirked him off, rubbed his shoulder, combed a hand through his hair then started the long march to Apophis.
Apophis pushed one of his lions aside to get a better look at Taylor. His hairy and haggard face was caught between a snarl and grimace, sorrow and hate.
Taylor searched passed Apophis to Yellow Jack. The Jackanine was wide eyed and alert, his arms and legs bound together and a dangling leash wrapped in the lion's paw. Seeing each other, Jack respectfully nodded, and Taylor nodded back.
The drone beamed pictures of Taylor's walk to the large screens over Times Square. He saw himself and read the scrolling caption underneath: Alien demands are met! Alien demands are met!
A scared public whispered as Taylor passed, but no one yelled, no one drew attention to themselves. Taylor felt his blood run cold when he arrived at the bottom of a raised podium, a hastily built scaffold with three steps leading to Apophis.
Taylor stopped and Wertz pressed the gun into his kidney, but Taylor would go no further. He raised his head to meet Apophis' eye. After holding the stare for several seconds, Apophis tugged on Jack's chain. The lion growled and Jack translated.
"Ham Taylor,” he stated. “General Apophis wants you to live. He wants you to live for a very long time.”
Taylor raised his foot and took the first of three steps.
"What's his plan, Jack?”
"General Apophis...wants you to bare witness to the death of everyone, and everything you ever cared for. Then and only then...when you are the last man alive, will he destroy this blue ball.”
"Figures,” Taylor uttered, taking the next step. “Well Jack, you can tell Apophis that he can fuck right off.”
Jack slunk and shook his head. “There is no way out of this, Ham Taylor. Death is all we can hope for.”
Without warning, Apophis ripped his claws down Jack's back, stripping the flesh and cutting the chains from his body. Jack crouched to his knees, his peeled skin exposing blood and muscle.
"Ham Taylor,” Jack grimaced, stretching out his free arms. “Did you...plant the baubles?”
Taylor took the third step to come face to face with Apophis. “I sure did.”
Free from his confinement, Yellow Jack parted his beak and reached deep into his mouth. Gargling mucus, Jack pulled a disc detonator from one of his two stomachs. He then circled his finger twice over the dripping disc and a red button rose from its centre. Jack placed his thumb over the button and glanced up at the mothership and the many thousands of Jackanine on board. He hesitated, and Taylor yelled.
"Do it Jack! Do it!”
Eyes wet, Yellow Jack looked up at Taylor. “I am sorry.”
Jack threw down the detonator and Taylor scurried to collect it. Jack and Taylor met on all fours as Taylor rubbed his thumb over the button. Apophis watched meanwhile, unworried and slightly amused, as if he knew something they did not.
The Jackanine nodded his consent at Taylor, but before he could blow the ship to smithereens, Apophis dropped a pile of crunched up steel baubles beside them. Taylor lowered his head in defeat and clung to Jack for support. Apophis chuckled through his thick teeth and hairy lips, savouring every victorious moment and those yet to come.
"It seems we have been defeated, Ham Taylor.”
With the detonator locked in hand, Taylor's demeanour was equally morose as his eyes wandered over the crunched up baubles, which carried the whiff of a sewer.
'Four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.'
He frowned, something was off. Taylor counted again, he needed to be sure. '...six, seven, eight, nine.'
His eyebrows shot up his forehead as he hopefully looked at the bird.
"What is wrong?” Jack whispered, and Taylor smiled.
"The satchel, Jack. He forgot the satchel.”
Taylor recalled the bag ripped from his arm and sucked into a pool of mites, a place even the Pride would be afraid to search.
Taylor stood and laughed, his hearty chuckle stopping Apophis in his tracks. The lion snared Taylor's shirt and pulled him close. Eye to eye, nose to snout, breath against breath, Taylor hissed: “You missed one.”
He pressed the detonator and an explosion brought the sun to a cloudy day. Bodies grimaced and ducked as sound waves cracked the glass of every skyscraper within a half-mile radius. The vapourized ship meanwhile, fell to a fiery snow over New York City.
Taylor stood with all of mankind over a hunched Apophis. The demoralized lion heaved as if hyperventilating, his ship and empire in ashy pieces around him.
The general's soldiers appeared shocked, caught between watching enormous crowd and protecting the general. Squinting down at Apophis, Taylor clenched his fist and smashed his torch across the lion's face, breaking his snout and knocking him over.
“Pussy.”
Wertz took the opportunity to seize the weapons from lost looking lions. He pulled random strangers from the crowd and quickly organized them into an armed militia around the Pride.
Taylor assisted Yellow Jack to his feet, and after a final glance at the falling stars, Taylor patted his friend's thin arm.
"You're an Earthling now, Jack. That okay with you?”
Jack, open beaked and bug eyed, nodded. “I will...make the most of it.”
Behind them, a stranger began to clap, then another and another. They smiled, they cheered, they yelled his name.
"TAYLOR! TAYLOR! TAYLOR!”
Taylor's face turned red as Times Square, New York and the world repeated his name.
— CHAPTER TWENTY —
3 weeks later
